CHAPTER 3
Katrina
The sun was high enough to cut through the trees. Katrina gave Marina a quick squeeze around the shoulders before heading for the van. Her sister was already dressed for her morning hike.
“Have fun with Skylla,” Katrina said.
“Have fun with the beginners,” Marina answered, and Skylla barked once in agreement from beside her.
The Volkswagen van sat parked on the gravel, its faded blue paint a reminder of its age.
Mom and Dad had found it on Craigslist years ago. Low mileage. Low price. Katrina still remembered how excited her mother had been over the deal.
It had turned out to be every bit as good as advertised.
Even now, the van required little more than routine maintenance. Then again, they didn't drive it all that much.
Katrina climbed in, tossed her bag onto the passenger seat, and turned the key.
The engine started smoothly.
Driving meant thinking, and thinking meant worrying about Marina. It always did. Katrina rolled down the window and let the salt air hit her face.
She had three lessons today. Alex, the beginner, for his second session. Two advanced students in the afternoon. If she timed it right, she could make it home for lunch with Marina and still squeeze in a nap.
What would Marina be doing while she was teaching? Hiking with Skylla would take an hour, maybe two. After that, she'd find something else to occupy herself. Scrubbing bathroom tiles. Reorganizing the pantry. Cleaning things that were already clean.
Katrina used to be grateful for all the housework. Now it just made her sad.
Two years ago, Katrina had quit her job in the city and come home with this idea. She’d open a surf school. She’d do it right. And eventually, Marina would come around. They’d run it together, the way they’d done everything together as kids.
But Marina hadn’t come around. She hiked with Skylla in the mornings. She worked afternoons and nights at the bar. She kept their parents’ house spotless, as if cleanliness could somehow fill the hole their deaths had left.
Eight years. It had been eight years since the storm.
Katrina understood grief. She'd processed it her own way—by moving, always moving, refusing to sit still long enough for it to catch her. College in San Francisco had helped. So had new friends, new experiences, and the simple necessity of building a life for herself.
But Marina had let grief settle into her bones. She'd become a different person.
The girl who used to ride waves with her hair flying wild, who used to laugh so hard she'd snort, who had always been the center of their father's world—that girl was gone.
Katrina had been jealous of that once. Their dad’s eyes had followed Marina everywhere. Now she'd give anything to see that light in her sister again.
The beach came into view below the curve of the road. Katrina took a deep breath and pushed the thoughts aside. She needed to be here, not there. She pulled the van onto the roadside near the cove and killed the engine.
She changed quickly, standing in the narrow space between the open door and the van’s body. Wet suit over her bikini, the neoprene cold against her skin. She zipped it up, grabbed a board from the rack, and headed down the path to the sand.
Alex was already there, waiting in his wetsuit with his own board tucked under his arm. He’d taken lessons with a friend last summer, but his basics were sloppy. Yesterday she’d spent an hour fixing his paddling. Today she wanted him to pop up.
“Let’s start on land,” she said, dropping her board onto the sand.
She lay flat on her board and demonstrated the motion. Hands under her shoulders, a quick push, feet swinging underneath her body in one fluid motion until she was standing, knees bent, arms out for balance. She held it for a beat, then dropped back down.
“See how easy it is?”
“You make it look easy,” Alex said.
She laughed. “Because it is easy. Now try again.”
He tried. His feet crossed. He fell sideways. He tried again. Better.
She was watching his third attempt when she felt it—the weight of someone’s gaze. She glanced up. A man in a jacket and jeans sat on top of a rock about twenty yards away, watching them. Just a tourist, she figured. People watched surf lessons all the time. She turned back to Alex.
“Can we go in the water?” he asked after a few more tries.
She knew he wasn’t ready. His pop-up was still shaky, his timing off.
But she also knew that if she kept him on the sand any longer, he’d lose interest entirely.
Students needed water. They needed to feel the board catch a wave, even a tiny one, to remember why they were putting themselves through this.
“Sure,” she said. “But remember—when you feel the board catch, that’s your signal. Count one-two, then up in a single motion. Don’t overthink it.”
They waded into the shallows. The water was cold enough to make Alex gasp.
Katrina stayed nearby, close enough to grab his board if he wiped out, far enough to let him figure it out on his own.
He caught a small wave, popped up for half a second, and fell.
He caught another. Fell again. His face was set with that particular brand of determination that beginners always had—the kind that came from pure stubbornness rather than skill.
In the corner of her eye, she could see the man on the rock. Still watching. She’d been teaching long enough to be used to spectators. This was a public beach. People stopped. They stared. It was part of the job.
But there was something about this one that made her self-conscious.
She couldn’t name it. It wasn’t creepy. It didn’t even seem particularly interested.
He was just... watching. Watching her. And for some reason, that made her adjust her stance, push her hair back, check that her wetsuit was zipped all the way.
They spent fifteen minutes in the water. Alex managed one decent pop-up on his last try, holding it for a full two seconds before toppling into the surf with a triumphant yell. That was enough for one day.
They packed up on the sand. Alex grabbed his towel and backpack.
“Thanks, Katrina! See you tomorrow?”
“Same time, same place,” she said, giving him a thumbs up.
Alex headed toward the parking lot. Katrina watched him go, then turned.
The man was standing up, brushing sand from his jeans. Getting ready to leave.
Maybe it was curiosity. Maybe it was the fact that he’d been sitting there watching her for the better part of an hour, and she couldn’t let him walk away without knowing why. Maybe it was something else entirely, something she didn’t want to examine too closely.
She headed toward him without a second thought.
He froze when he saw her coming. Like a kid caught stealing candy. It made her want to laugh.
“Your turn now, mister,” she called out, fighting a grin as she closed the distance between them.
He chuckled nervously. “Oh, I was just watching. Sorry if that was weird.”
“No free shows,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. “There’s a fee for surf lesson voyeurism.”
She was kidding. She expected him to laugh, maybe make a joke in return.
Instead, he reached for his wallet. “How much are we talking?”
Katrina burst out laughing. “I’m kidding! God, you should see your face.”
He shook his head and slid his wallet back into his pocket. His ears had gone slightly red. “For a second there, I wasn’t entirely sure.”
“I’m Katrina,” she said, extending her hand.
“Ryan,” he replied, shaking it. His palm was warm. “I’m here on vacation.”
Up close, he was very handsome. Eyes the same color as hers, hazel, shifting between brown and green in the light.
His hair was brown, a shade lighter than her auburn, and he was tall—at least six feet, maybe more.
He had the kind of build that didn’t come from a gym but from actual work, broad through the shoulders and lean through the waist. He was wearing a jacket that looked too warm for the beach and jeans that looked too clean.
A tourist. Just a tourist.
But for a moment, standing there with her hand in his, Katrina forgot what she was supposed to say next.
They stood there for a beat too long, hands still clasped, before Ryan let go.
They started small talk. He told her he was staying in his boss’s vacation house for a week. He apologized for watching her lesson without permission, and complimented her teaching skills.
When he admitted he had never surfed before, Katrina blurted out, “Would you like to learn?”
The words were out of her mouth before she could catch them. What the hell was she doing?
She didn't offer free lessons to random strangers on the beach. She offered them to people who actually wanted to learn. Potential customers. People likely to come back for more.
This guy had been sitting on a rock watching someone else's lesson. He was just killing time on his vacation.
And yet. Something about him made her want to see him out on the water.
He looked surprised. “I’m not sure I’d be any good at it.”
“Everyone sucks at first. That’s the whole point of lessons.” She was doubling down now, unable to stop herself. “First one’s free. Consider it a welcome-to-California package.”
Why was she doing this? She hoped she wasn’t scaring him. She hoped she didn’t sound desperate, though part of her wondered if she was.
To her surprise, he nodded. “Yeah. Okay. When could I start?”
And then, because apparently her mouth had completely divorced itself from her brain, she said, “What about now?”
Before she could process what was happening, she was leading him across the sand toward her van. The beach was emptying out as midday approached. She popped the side door of the van and dug through the gear stacked inside.
“What size are you? Large?”
“I think so.”
She found a men's large wetsuit and handed it to him. It was one of the wetsuits she kept for students, slightly faded from use but still in good condition.
“You can leave your underwear on. The neoprene goes right over. Step into the legs first, then work it up.”